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Long gone but not forgotten

Most know that Bruce and Brandon Lee are buried in Capitol Hill’s Lake View Cemetery. Walk along 15th Avenue E. almost any day, you’re likely to be stopped and asked how to find their grave sites.

Fewer stop to ask after Lake View’s monument to the Japanese warriors who fought in World War II on the American side. Still fewer cross north over E. Howe St. to visit the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who, after 1865, when the Civil War ended, started their new lives here.

Too much
The Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery was set aside for Civil War heroes in 1896. And it rested in the loving care of their fellow soldiers until 1922, when maintenance got to be just too much for the aging veterans to manage.

Too much for the city, too, as it turned out.

The Coast Artillery was allowed to use the site for a World War II searchlight and crew quarters. After that, dumping and baseball became the principal uses of the area.

In the 60s, the Army was persuaded replace the crooked and crumbling grave markers with new flat military plaques, names and dates now readable. But in 1996, neighbors narrowly prevented a city plan to turn the weed infested field into a dog park, setting Rover loose to romp over the headstones.

F GAR to the rescue
It’s thanks to this determined group of neighbors–Friends of the G.A.R., formed in 1997–that the scraggly hedge has been trimmed and the weed-pocked dirt replanted with grass.

The American flag now flies here every day. On Memorial Day, each grave gets its own little flag as well. And in spring daffodils, too, pop up beside each marker.

If you go, you’ll find the bulletin board at the entrance lists the names, ranks and locations of all who are buried here. You’ll also find the address for contributing to the fund for maintaining the cemetery and its green border. Neighbors provide the labor.

And you can still take Rover. There’s plenty of open green lawn under the magnificent old squirrel-filled maples and oaks that have stood their watch here these many years.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..